


A Disorganised Look at Tobias Beecher/Chris Keller in Seasons 2-3

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: Analysis, Meta, Nonfiction, Season/Series 02, Season/Series 03, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 06:48:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19436113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for the series. Complete.





	A Disorganised Look at Tobias Beecher/Chris Keller in Seasons 2-3

I wonder if Christopher Keller is a case of [The Danza](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDanza) or if the name was decided before Meloni was cast.

Augustus narrates about sometimes Boy Meets Boy happens in Oz.

There’s a flashback of Keller robbing a store, taking a person hostage, shooting a store employee, and taking off on a motorcycle. The police are pursuing, and there’s a traffic accident.

Augustus reveals Keller was sentenced to 88 years and is up for parole in 50.

Next, Diane comes to tell Hill to get his stuff since Tim has assigned Beecher a new roomie. Beecher is like, ‘But I’m cool with the paraplegic black guy who has no personal ill-feelings towards me, and again, is paraplegic.’

Diane takes Beecher to meet Keller, and Keller has a cast around his hand. I don’t know which hand. The two eye each other up, but there isn’t any true homoeroticism yet.

Beecher takes Keller to the pod, and using a politically incorrect term, Keller asks if Beecher is gay.

“No. You?”

“I do what I have to.”

Right off the bat, this is an interesting response.

Beecher doesn’t lie; he’s bisexual. 

Keller’s answer is perfectly honest, too, but it doesn’t actually answer the question asked. If he has to sleep with men or women, he will, but he doesn’t state which, if either, he’d rather sleep with.

This done, Beecher goes off on crazy rhyming, and Keller’s just like, ‘Okay, I can see why they moved the paraplegic out of your cell, but if they really wanted to protect the other inmates, putting someone with a cast on his hand in maybe isn’t that much of an improvement.’

Later, Beecher is on one of the payphones, and Keller comes to use one. He’s stopped by one of the neo-Nazis, and his response is to break the guy’s nose. Beecher is immediately out there stopping another Neo-Nazi from attacking Keller, and after the broken-nosed Neo-Nazi is taken to the infirmary, Keller declares he owes Beecher.

“I didn’t do it for you, pal.” He makes it clear he absolutely hates the neo-Nazis.

During the night, Beecher has night terrors, and Keller’s touch genuinely isn’t sexual or threatening, but Beecher is absolutely not down with being touched.

“Alright. Alright.” Keller gets back in his bunk, and there’s something of a smile on his face.

The next day, Keller’s in the shower when Beecher comes in.

I’m impressed with the camera work here. From everything I’ve read, Meloni had no reservations with doing full frontal, and there are scenes where his penis is visible including this one. However, as far as I know, Lee Tergesen never did full frontal, and in this scene, it’s blocked so that his underwear area isn’t shown. I’d’ve thought either both actors would be blocked or both would be showing, but somehow, the cameraperson did two different things.

Beecher apologises for his reaction last night, and Keller’s all, ‘We’re cool, and also, we should team up since neither of us fit in any of the prison cliques.’

Bringing up his trust issues, Beecher nixes this.

However, Keller suggests, okay, we don’t have be besties right now, but let’s agree that, maybe, we can eventually get to that point. “We’ll just see what happens, alright? Alright?”

He waits, and Beecher agrees, “Alright.”

In the gym, Keller’s lifting weights when Vern comes in. The neo-Nazi with the broken nose is not happy, but Vern sends him off. He asks how the plan to destroy Beecher is coming, and Keller assures him, though it’ll take some time, he’s on the right track. “Don’t worry. Sooner or later, Beecher will be mine.”

And that will be when Vern should start worrying.

Later, Keller goes to the infirmary to get his cast taken off, and the broken-nosed neo-Nazi is there. They snipe at one another until Dr Nathan comes out. There’s a moment of genuine light-heartedness when Keller playfully screams when she turns on the little saw she’s going to be using.

After this, Beecher and Keller go to the gym so that Keller can teach Beecher wrestling, and the homoeroticism hits the ground running.

Nearby, Vern watches smug as punch.

He is going to regret this so much someday.

Eventually, Beecher realises, ‘Oh, shit, I’m attracted to this guy, and I don’t know if he feels the same, but if he does, that isn’t a good thing.’

Keller realises, too, Beecher is attracted to him, but I’m wondering if he himself has started to feel attraction towards Beecher or if it comes later.

On a slightly different note, I don’t think the plan was seduce Beecher from the beginning. He had no way of knowing if Beecher did have any genuine attraction to men or not, and even if Vern assured him Beecher did, he knows Vern well enough to take this with a whole shaker of salt. The plan was to befriend Beecher, and this being Keller, he also decided before going in, ‘Okay, if he does have an attraction to men, I’ll go for more than friendship.’

Later, Beecher is trying to teach Keller chess, and Keller is like, ‘Playing chess isn’t going to help you against the guy playing Russian roulette.’

Tim arrives, and part of me thinks he should have insisted they talk privately. Beecher’s wife is dead via suicide.

After Tim leaves, Keller tries to figure out what Beecher needs or even wants, and everyone does a wonderful job with Keller putting one hand on Beecher’s arm and the other on the back of neck/head area as he rests his forehead against Beecher’s.

It’s such a sweet, gentle moment, except, it’s tainted. Maybe Keller has genuine feelings by this point, or maybe he doesn’t. It doesn’t matter, because, he’s planning to hurt a broken man even more, and he will go through with it.

Beecher kicks things around, and Keller calmly assures the guards and everyone else it’s fine. Leave the grieving man alone, he’s not actually a physical danger to people right now.

Later, Vern delivers the suicide note Mrs Beecher left, and he’s his typical horrible self. Keller asks what the note says, and throwing it away, Beecher says his wife blamed her death on him.

During the night, Keller is sleeping when Beecher’s cries wake him up. Getting out of bed, he goes over to where Beecher is standing, and Beecher doesn’t react to his touch until he gets near the crotch area. Then, Beecher reacts badly.

I’m really not sure if Keller did this knowing he’d get such a reaction or not. I wouldn’t put it past him, but I also wouldn’t put it past him to just want sex or even decide he wanted to offer some genuine comfort and not realise this was unlikely to result in either.

Another night, Beecher has night terrors, Keller jumps up, and this time, Beecher doesn’t recoil when Keller is touching him. It’s not sexual or threatening, and he’s starting to trust this.

Getting out of bed, he starts to change clothes, and he doesn’t even pay attention to Keller helping him remove the clothes or the fact Keller’s examining him until Keller draws attention to the swastika on his bottom.

“We need to do something about that tattoo.”

“Oh, yeah?” The scoffing chuckle isn’t bitter. “What are **we** going to do?”

Keller returns the scoffing chuckle. If he weren’t already on a mission, this would set him on one. ‘You think there’s no **we**? There is, and I’m going to make it where you just accept this fact without thought or hesitation.’ His voice is causal and, to Beecher’s ears, sincere, “I don’t know. Let me think on it, huh?”

Beecher decides he’s not going to bother. There is no **we** , but hey, maybe, they really are friends, and he’s not going to jump on a friend’s word choice in this instance.

Keller, though, touches the side of his neck. He asks for verbal confirmation Beecher is okay.

It’s given, and Keller goes back down to his bed.

Beecher wavers between looking at his might-be friend and trying not to look at the man he’s starting to trust.

The lust part doesn’t matter. He’s lusted and been lusted after. If he wants to have sex, he can push this aside. If someone wants to have sex with him, he probably won’t let it happen, but if he does decide to, it won’t be a big deal as long as it’s consensual on both ends.

Later, Sister Pete senses something is up.

There are different types of love. He loves his sons, he loves his dad and brother, he eventually loves Said. Keller is a might-be friend he’s sexually attracted to. He doesn’t fully know him, but do you need to know someone fully to find yourself maybe falling in love? He’s only been in love with women before, possibly only one woman, and he wants to know, if he is somehow falling in love with a man, does this have the same legitimacy, is it as strong and pure, and is the messiness the same as with a woman?

Sister Pete’s contribution is helping him come to the realisation he most likely is feeling romantic love.

Afterwards, there’s a cute moment of Beecher and Keller standing together. Beecher’s quietly talking, and Keller seems amused.

They go inside their cell, and Keller’s presents his plan: They will get Beecher drunk, and then, he will burn the swastika into a new shape. He’s even procured moonshine.

Beecher points out he’s an alcoholic, and acting all mopey, Keller hides the moonshine with Beecher watching where he puts it.

At night, Beecher wakes up, and he’s tempted to drink. I’m not sure when exactly Keller woke up or if he was even asleep, but pretending to sleep, he sees if Beecher will take the bait.

Beecher doesn’t.

In the gym, Vern is disappointed Beecher didn’t drink, and Keller insists he himself, not alcohol, is the key to Beecher’s destruction.

Well, unfortunately for him, yeah.

I think really, though, he’s more focused on the fact Beecher loves him. The question is: Does he love Beecher right now, or does this come later?

Seeing Beecher come in, Keller yells as he shoves Vern. Taking the hint, Vern bounces, and when Beecher asks what that was about, Keller claims he doesn’t know why Vern was near him, but he sure does hate him and the other neo-Nazis.

Next, Beecher and Keller are showering, and Keller’s all, ‘See your kids. Their grandparents can only do so much; they need their dad more than anything right now.’

So, a shaven Beecher sees them, and he’s in a better place emotionally than he’s been in a long time. This changes when he finds Keller. Keller thinks he looks good clean-shaven, and also, Keller is giving the impression of being drunk. Supposedly, his favourite ex-wife has remarried.

Beecher’s like, ‘I’ll give you a hug if you come over here.’ Nope. Alright, he goes over to Keller, and he’s hesitant about touching him, but he does.

“I love you,” he admits to himself and Keller.

There’s a moment of no response, and then, “I love you, Toby.”

They kiss, a guard breaks them up, and Keller attacks. He’s dragged away to the hole.

Inside, however, he gives the impression he’s more sober than he led everyone to believe.

I know it likely is, but I really hope throwing a person naked in a locked room isn’t done in any modern, first-world country prisons.

During the night, Beecher’s an emotional mess, and he ends up drinking.

Sister Pete and Tim quickly discover he’s off-the-wagon, and he doesn’t implicate Keller in obtaining the moonshine. They decide to give him one free pass, and addiction won’t let him make the most of this. He’s not going to let it end with one drunken binge.

When Keller comes out, spiralling Beecher is needy, clingy, and desperate. Keller is cold and distant.

Then, Keller, Vern, and a guard break Beecher’s legs and arms, and Keller declares he doesn’t love Beecher.

The storyline of Keller being a serial killer of gay men has never rung true for me, and I sometimes wonder if there were changes made when the B/K ship became so popular. I wonder if one or both of these characters were supposed to die or be written off long before the final season.

I don’t know what Meloni was going for in the second season. In later seasons, I absolutely believe, however twisted and unhealthy, Keller’s love for Beecher is real.

If I just saw the second season, I’d probably believe Keller was just a conman who’d teamed up with Vern and felt no remorse for doing so. There is one scene where it’s implied he might feel some, but it could just as easily be read as: Well, that project’s finished, but it might have consequences. What’s my next step?

Beecher doesn’t tell what really happened, and when he’s released from the hospital with a cane, he’s put back in a cell with Keller.

Keller simply lies on the bed when Beecher comes in, and they share a look, but I’m not sure what to make of Keller’s expression.

Beecher’s is, ‘Yeah, you’ve joined the list of my enemies. So what? The list of people who want to destroy me, some of whom I want to destroy back, is already so long I’m just gonna roll with it.’

Once Beecher is up on the bed, and therefore, less of a physical threat, Keller asks, “Beecher?”

Casually filing his nails, Beecher’s response is a simple, “Yeah?”

“Look, I know there’s no reason for you to believe me, but um-”

“You’re sorry?”

Keller takes a deep breath. He doesn’t need Beecher’s indifferent sarcasm to know these words aren’t going to fall on receptive ears.

He has to say them, though, before he can start trying to prove them by his actions.

So, he continues, “Yeah.”

“And you promise you’ll never do it again?”

He’s like, okay, I’ll risk my physical safety now. Standing up, he looks directly at Beecher. “Toby, I’m serious.”

“No doubt.” Beecher continues filing his nails. He truly isn’t angry or hurt in this moment.

“Look, what I did was wrong. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to prove to you that I’m truly sorry and I do love you.”

Laughing, Beecher suggests he’d be up for sodomising Keller.

There’s one review I read where I got the impression the reviewer genuinely thought Keller was opposed to bottoming, and I’ve never gotten that impression. Personally, I’ve always imagined B/K’s sex life as versatile, and I’d argue some later dialogue does hint at this.

My reading is: Maybe, Beecher’s serious about being up for some sex, or maybe, this is just a verbal barb.

It doesn’t matter which. The point is that Keller is sincerely trying to figure out what will restore Beecher’s trust so that they can have a genuine relationship. Later episodes will show how much he sexually desires Beecher, but even if Beecher is saying, ‘Look, if you’re up for it, I’ll have sex with you,’ Keller wants a relationship with the man he loves, not to have sex with the man he loves while said man either hates or is indifferent to him.

He doesn’t know what will work, but he does know Beecher enough to know that submitting sexually wouldn’t right now. Beecher didn’t love or respect Vern. Beecher would be furious at the implication that what he (Beecher) did was an indication of any form of love or respect.

However, he does think, Beecher breaking his bones might work. Tit-for-tat, slate’s wiped clean, they’re equals.

Beecher doesn’t believe Keller wouldn’t snitch if Beecher did this, however.

I don’t think Keller would, at least, not until one of their explosive relationship dramas down the line, but I mean, first, Beecher is temporarily paralysed, and then, Keller ends up with broken bones, too. Not to mention, everyone pretty much knew Vern was behind Beecher’s assault, and some people, at least, suspected Keller might have been involved. There’s a good chance both might be found out if enough threads are connected.

Finally, Beecher’s at the limit of his patience. He says Keller can prove his sincerity by confessing to Tim what he, Vern, and the guard did.

Keller isn’t happy, but he’s willing to take sole blame so as to not be targeted by Vern and the guard.

“Not good enough,” Beecher declares.

There's barely a beat. “Alright, I’ll tell McManus everything.”

“I’ll hold my breath.”

Cursing Beecher and probably himself, Keller goes outside to demand he be taken to Tim. He is, and the neo-Nazi guard kidnaps Beecher from his cell.

In response, Beecher kills him with the nails he was filing earlier.

Next, Diane comes to escort Vern to Tim and Glynn, and Keller is put in protective custody.

Then, Augustus narrates, “Truth is a powerful thing. It can right a wrong.”

Vern is locked in the hole.

“Or make a bad thing worse.”

The dead guard is shown, and Beecher clips his bloody nails off into the toilet.

“But in Oz, the truth is: If the facts don’t fit the truth, (f-bomb) the facts.”

Later, Keller is starting to masturbate to a magazine when Glynn comes to talk to him. Keller wants to go back to being Beecher’s roomie, and somehow, this request ends up being granted.

Beecher is brushing his teeth, and Meloni is great with the subtle desperation and lovey-dovey longing when Keller talks about how they’ve only ever shared one kiss.

I’m not sure Beecher brushing his teeth even harder isn’t him trying clean his mouth from any trace that kiss might have left or outright retroactively undo it.

Finally, Keller loses his patience, and pushing Beecher against a wall, he screams about how he did what Beecher wanted. A little calmer, he pleads, “Toby, you know what that costs me?”

Beecher points out this could be another scheme Keller has with Vern. He spells out, ‘I will never trust you again, but hey, thanks for letting me give you a little taste of your own medicine.’

Later, Vern and Keller end up in the library together.

Then, Keller is shanked when he’s stacking paper in the store room.

Of course, there’s an implication Vern might have been behind it, but even more interestingly, there’s a subtle implication it might have been Beecher.

After Keller’s near miraculous recovery, he and Tim are talking, and Vern comes over to say, hey, he’s not denying he’s glad this happened, and he wouldn’t be above it, but wasn’t me this time.

I’m curious about what the directions and/or acting choices were in regards to how J.K. Simmons played this scene. I don’t know if he’s playing Vern as honest or as Vern putting on a pretty convincing performance.

Next, Keller visits Sister Pete, and he’s not subtle about his disappointment Beecher isn’t around. However, he did actually come here for a reason other than hoping to see Beecher right now: He wants to do a victim-offender interaction program with Beecher.

“Do you really care about him?”

Leaning back, he looks at her with shiny eyes. “You got no reason to believe me, but yeah.”

She agrees.

Cue Beecher and Keller in their cell. “Keller, I don’t know what your scam is, but I’m not buying it.”

Keller reiterates his desire to make things right, and Beecher goes on about how messed up emotionally he (Beecher) is. When he switches to the topic of bringing down Vern, Keller shows genuine hope and excitement. “I can help you with that.”

At Beecher’s refusal, he’s amused in asking if Beecher is going to get Vern all by Beecher’s self.

Beecher brings up the guard, and Keller doesn’t believe him.

Then, Beecher implies he shanked Keller, and Keller is freaked out due to not knowing if this is true or not. At one point, Beecher mentions the fact Keller was stacking paper, but this isn’t definite proof one way or another.

There’s the possibility Keller did mention what he was doing to someone else (with word spreading to Beecher), and right now, he’s too freaked out to remember. Or Beecher could have just thrown out what was a fairly safe guess and gotten it right.

Or he could have done it.

I don’t know. I like the ambiguity.

Next up, Vern’s drug-addicted son arrives as a prisoner.

I can’t find any information on what colour Simmons’ hair color was before it turned gray/white, but I’ve always assumed Vern used to be blond. Now, I don’t claim to be an expert in genetics, and in fact, if I ever do make such a claim, have me drug-tested, psychiatrically evaluated, and/or checked for signs of demon possession, but with a brown-haired son, I’m guessing the woman he made said son with didn’t have blonde or red hair.

It always amuses me when a person with dark hair and eyes is all Aryan Power! It turns out, Hitler having brown eyes is a popular misconception, but he did have fairly dark brown, if not outright black, hair. So, I guess, in a way they do share a deeper kinship with him than the similar-minded pale-haired, pale-eyed people who are exalted as the ideal.

Keller, Beecher, and Ryan all decide to take down Vern via said son, Andrew.

Beecher acts as a mentor, and given who they are, the other two are nice enough to Beecher’s little tagalong. Eventually, Andrew gets on track to potentially being a decent person, and so, Vern engineers his own son’s death.

During this, Keller is going through a spiritual crisis/awakening, and he handles this by sort of playing mind-games with Sister Pete and kindling conflicted feelings of lust in her. Part of this involves macking on all three of his ex-wives when they visit, and to me it’d be more interesting if he was doing this to try to see if Beecher cared/get under Beecher’s skin, but since, at this point, Beecher honestly wouldn’t care, there could have been a concern too much of Beecher being done with Keller would lose fans of the ship.

I buy this more than him being a serial killer of gay men, and I can’t say this is outside of the realm of possibility for Sister Pete, but I’ve never liked this plot.

One thing I have mixed feelings about is one of his ex-wives is plus-sized, and there’s some definite grossness in the implications she was unhappy and easy to emotionally manipulate due to her weight, but Meloni seems to play Keller as both genuinely loving, though not in love with, her and being sexually attracted to her. He looks at her with lust in his eyes, and when they make-out, I get the impression Keller is getting real physical satisfaction from it.

There is one thing I like, and it’s some of Keller’s dialogue when he and Sister Pete are talking about him meeting Vern when he (Keller) was seventeen. She asks if Vern raped him.

“Vern likes the power part of sex, so, I let him think he did.”

“Do you enjoy sex with men?”

“I enjoy sex.”

First, it’s clear to me Vern did rape him.

This makes sense, though. Keller is bisexual, and I get the feeling his characterisation until the serial killer plot was intended to be of someone who enjoys sex with people he likes or loves. He might have casual sex on occasion or employ it as a sort of bargaining chip, but generally, he wants it to be with someone special. There are some things he absolutely wouldn’t be into, and there are probably some things he’s happy whenever they happen, but mostly, whatever the person he’s with wants, he’ll happily be down with.

I don’t believe he ever thought himself in love with Vern, but I don’t think he hated Vern until after his relationship with Beecher truly started. So, he tells himself he was just a good sex partner. He was the one with the real power.

Then, Keller expresses self-loathing, and he makes it clear he pushes people who love him to see if their love is unconditional.

As I’ve said, there’s a disconnect to me between season 2 Keller, seasons 3-4 Keller, and season 5 Keller. I’m not sure about season 6 Keller right now. Season 2 Keller was a man with a project, and after it was done, he might have felt some remorse, but he did it, because, he put it above any deeper feelings he had, not because he wanted to see if he could reel Beecher back in afterwards.

He says here he wanted unconditional surrender before the unconditional love, and at one point, Meloni plays Keller incredibly creepy when he acknowledges Beecher doesn’t love him and that this is eating him up inside.

If there is a retcon going on, it’s not sloppy, but I do think a different direction for Keller and/or Beecher was originally planned, this changed, and then, someone still tried to incorporate some of the things that were meant to happen in the original direction into the new one.

Interspersed with this, after Andrew is dead, Keller wants to be roomies again, and he’d also really like some physical intimacy to be on the table.

Beecher is all, ‘Get it through your head: I will get whatever I can out of your attempts to win me back, but you’d be better off accepting you won’t succeed.’

Meanwhile, Beecher is on his own spiritual quest, and he and Said grow closer.

Keller doesn’t take any of this well, especially when Said and Beecher become roomies.

I’m not sure how much of a sexually jealous person Keller is. He does kill some people Beecher sleeps with later on, but I’m not sure this isn’t due to him just trying to take away what little pleasure Beecher might get and possibly being secretly afraid Beecher might really fall in love with someone else.

In this case, I really get the impression it’s Beecher’s emotional connection with Said along with the fact Said would never be on his side when it comes to the possibility of him and Beecher having a relationship that currently bothers Keller the most. He knows Said is straight, and he knows Beecher respects Said too much to make a pass.

If Said and Beecher were having sex, Keller wouldn’t like it, but I think he’d be more like, ‘Okay, fine, once I finally get our relationship repaired, we will have sex so good that he’ll stop having it with other people,’ rather than forming a strong personal dislike towards Said.

He continues playing mind-games by starting to cancel his sessions with Sister Pete, and when she asks Beecher about him, Beecher is mild in both his assurance Keller seems fine and his statement they don’t talk often.

However, realising she’s genuinely upset, he goes to snipe at Keller.

Then, she comes herself to talk to Keller, and when he sees Beecher watching them, he goes on about how he physically longs for Beecher. He explicitly says it’s not even about sex, he just wants to be able to touch Beecher.

I’d like this a lot better if it weren’t for him oozing manipulative sexuality and her dealing with the mindscrew that is finding herself sexually wanting someone like him, but the acting of both performers is excellent.

She calls him out on the mind-games. Then, she tries to get him to understand: Yes, Beecher trusts her, and therefore, her attempts to help Keller won’t include manipulating Beecher on his behalf, because, she’s worthy of Beecher’s trust. Unlike him. He had Beecher’s trust, too, and he broke it in some of the worse ways possible.

Keller insists he’s changed.

And she’s like, ‘You emotionally manipulated him, partly by using your sexuality, and now, you’re playing mind-games with me, again partly by using your sexuality.’

“And I don’t trust you anymore.”

I’m really not sure a trained counsellor would have let themselves get this far in the first place, but still: Good for her.

Meanwhile, Vern is planning to bring down both Beecher and Said, and Keller tries to sit with them at mealtime. Beecher, however, insists he leave.

The thing is, though, Said urges Beecher to forgive Keller for Beecher’s own spiritual and psychological good. He definitely isn’t urging Beecher to be with Keller, but he is urging Beecher not to go through life hating Keller and/or carrying the emotional pain Keller inflicted around.

Keep the lessons, but release the hurt they caused. Don’t necessarily trust or like the person who did you wrong, but understand they’re human just like you, and stop letting them take up bad space in your head and heart.

He also urges Beecher to forgive Vern.

In turn, Beecher asks about Said forgiving the guy who screwed Said over.

Cue Said stripping off his shirt and making a religious spectacle in the common room area.

Later, Keller is having trouble with a computer, and coming in, Beecher helps him. Then, he says he forgives Keller, and I don’t think Keller really buys this. He tries to kiss Beecher, but Beecher rejects this.

Earlier, Keller had said Beecher doesn’t love him, and I don’t know if he believed this or was saying it to give Sister Pete the impression she was making progress. Maybe most of him did believe it, but part of him sees the truth: Beecher’s love for him has never fully gone away.

Beecher can’t trust him, isn’t actively lusting after the person who did him so wrong, and genuinely doesn’t want to be around him. But also, Beecher still loves him.

At this point, if Beecher forgives him, Beecher will find himself wanting him again, and Keller knows this.

Some part of Beecher knows this, too.

The words of forgiveness Beecher said, he wanted them to be true. He is trying to let go of the bad.

He just can’t right now.

Keller isn’t surprised, but he’s hurt by Beecher using his name: Chris.

There was Operation Toby, but in the laundry room, Beecher referred to him as Chris for the first time. Likewise, ‘Toby’ was first used by Keller towards Beecher when Keller declared his love. It was used when he first apologised.

This is just Beecher trying to pretend he’s forgiven when he hasn’t, and if that weren’t bad enough, Beecher is invoking memories of the time when Beecher was sincere and Keller, whether he did love Beecher then or not, was using the words to sell pain.

So, Keller's perfectly rational, healthy impulse to the person whose arms he broke not being up for being his boyfriend but has developed a fairly healthy platonic friendship with a guy he knows is straight is to try to enlist Ryan’s help in killing Said. 

“Without Beecher suspecting, right, Keller?”

I love Dean Winters' delivery here.

Ryan informs him the neo-Nazis are already planning to whack Said.

Keller’s like, ‘That doesn’t make me feel better! Beecher will most likely end up in the crossfire.’

Sure enough, Beecher and Said come into the gym, and Beecher tries to make things right with the rapist, racist scum who’s tried to kill him more than once. This erupts into a fight, and Beecher’s stabbed.

Stabbing Vern, Keller goes over to Beecher, and pressing his hand against the wound, he tries to protect Beecher when SWAT comes in.

After everyone is released from the hospital and their jail cells, Beecher and Keller meet up, and Beecher says he asked Tim to let them be roommates again.

After what went down, he knows Keller genuinely cares for him. Maybe this means Keller really won’t hurt him again.

At any rate, he came close to dying, Keller was there, and in that moment, he forgave. Slate was finally wiped clean. Now, he wants, again.

Later, in the cell, everything is slow and tentative. When Keller moves forward, Beecher reaches for him. They touch, and Keller gently puts his hand over the area where Beecher was stabbed.

Sober and free of lies, they kiss.

It’s a new year and a new beginning.


End file.
